what strikes me is we have so few discussion about windows 8
.
my prediction is, that no one will care. some people will say, oh right, here's an interface that looks like a media center or whatever, mixed with a grid of shortcuts.
other people won't think anything of it, they'll get to the browser or the music player and that's it.
a minority will spend dozens hours bitching on every forum about it ; another minority will remember how you used to tweak XP. they know that they can get it fixed in no time by downloading a free .exe, after the initial bitching.
on linux, you often need to edit config files (and actually hunt them), or
fork a huge desktop environment, set up a team of 10 people and work for 1.5 year hacking, testing and maintaining it if you want your pet feature or UI aspect. (then maintain it for 3 more years)
on windows, you
can't do anything by yourself. getting the source code and hacking on it can even end you in jail. BUT countless freewares can bring you every kind of pet feature, such as minimizing windows into tray when middle clicking the "_" button, and other ridiculous things. INCLUDING a start menu in windows 8.
that's for people who care ; hopefully someone who has strong enough feelings about the UI will download that damn 150KB program that a few million people will use and that will turn windows 8 into windows 7.
most other people won't care. especially because it's the second windows OS in a row that doesn't run slower and isn't less stable than its predecessor. (the actual version number, 6.2, illustrates it's a refined Vista, with the benefits of mature drivers too). even dumb users can feel when a system is slow and crashy ; here it will be blazing fast and rock solid, most times.